Hey Darling Ones,

Earlier this week while I was deep in grief I read some of the archives to see what I had written last year around this time.

I wrote about the movie “Reality Bites” and my nihilistic streak and why I was mad at Dave Grohl

Writing about pop culture is one of the Before Jodi things I missed the most. It is also the thing I have the most control over. So, this year I’m gonna try to do a monthlyish round-up of things I’ve dug recently — books, movies, TV, snacks, etc. So here goes.

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

I love a good feminist retelling of Greek mythology. They are very much my jam. I’ve read a bunch of them featuring Circe, the women of Troy, Cassandra, and Clytemnestra — to name a few. Hoo, do I have some opinions about Agamemnon.

This one about Medusa and her sisters is double-A+ fantastic. I have had a Medusa thing for awhile. Maybe since I started pondering my own monstrousness. I have a Medusa shirt I wear all the time. The only reason I’m not wearing it right now is because I took a shower last night and that called for fresh clothes.

This book made me both laugh out loud and cry real tears.

ALSO, if this is your kind of thing, you can read Gwen E. Kirby’s excellent short story “Shit Cassandra Saw That She Didn’t Tell the Trojans Because at that Point Fuck Them Anyway” for free. Her whole short story collection is seventeen fire emojis.

“Weird Faith” Madi Diaz

I discovered Madi Diaz back in 2022, and we eagerly anticipating this new record. It came out yesterday. I’ve listened to it six times from front to back. It’s the kind of bold and vulnerable songwriting that makes me want to stare into the middle distance while absorbing every single lyric.

Rebecca Solnit: How to Comment on Social Media

This satire piece killed me. Not only is it dead on, but I recognize how I try to head off some of these comments when I’m writing. Especially number four:
“That is, anything not declared in the post is something O.P. does not care about/is complicit with. Every expression of concern is in fact an expression of unconcern about something else. . .”

Number seven also hits home.

“Finally if the post is about something O.P. cares about, remember that you’ve cared about it longer, deeper, harder than they have, and that even someone’s care can be a basis for your triumph, along with condemning them for all those other things they evidently do not care about.”

I get this one a lot whenever I mention that I love The Replacements or the age of iwilldare.com (23+ years). People love to tell me they once had a blog in the late-90s or early-aughts.

Not that they have continuously written about their life on the internet for two-decades, but that they did once before I did.

Ok.

“June”

I loved this documentary on Paramount+ about June Carter Cash. It gives her the respect she’s due as a full-formed artist before she even met Johnny Cash. It talks about her goals as an artist and a woman. It also mentions, repeatedly, that she wrote “Ring of Fire.” Plus, it was both Dolly and Willie in it.

That’s what I’ve been digging lately. How about you?

Love,
Jodi

The post Appreciation 2.24 appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

Last week while my infection was wreaking havoc on my life I managed to attend a virtual reading by Hanif Abdurraqib.

I’m having a moment with Abdurraqib’s work. His book, A Little Devil in America was the best thing I read in 2021. That’s saying a lot because 2021 was a good reading year for me. I love ALDIA so much that it’s one of my comfort books. I just finished reading it for the third (or fourth?) time a few weeks ago.

Over the weekend I read They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, and I enjoyed it, but due to aformentioned havoc-wreaking infection I didn’t give it the attention it deserved. I’ll definitely have another go at it soon.

Tonight I’m gonna watch a celebration of Toni Morrison with Hanif Abdurraqib and Dionne Custer Edwards. I do feel a teeny bit stalkery. Like I said, I’m having a moment. Though, to be fair, it’s really no different than traveling to various states to see your favorite performer on consecutive nights. Right? RIGHT?

Another reason I’m attending: I have read The Bluest Eye more than any other novel. I’ve read it about every other year since it was assigned in my Women’s Lit course in the summer of 1992.

At the reading last week, Abdurraqib talked about why his mother, who died when he was 12, continually shows up in his writing.

I wanted to share this with you because parents and beloved aunts and uncles are dropping like flies in my age cohort. I know seven people who have lost parents in the last eight/nine months. I see so many struggling with their grief and the guilt for still grieving.

What Abdurraqib said about grief, grieving, and his writing has found a home deep in my heart, and it’s been rattling around my brain for a week looking for an escape.

Here’s what he said: “Grief [is] not something you get to be done with, which for a long time I thought that was the case. I thought grief is something you get to move past or you get to kind of extract and leave behind. But thankfully, I think, I’ve come to realize that grief is something that makes a permanent home inside of you and then you have to be a good steward to it, and if you are a good steward to it, then it in turn can be a good steward to you and the absence is not only accompanied by ache.

I think my mother arrives so much in my work because I think about that kind of process as tending to my grief. I’m tending to my memories, tending to decorating the absence with memories so it isn’t just wind blowing through it, so to speak.”

(all grammatical errors and typos are mine. I’m not good at transcription.)

It’s the idea of decorating the absence with memories that kicks me in the gut. Tears come when I think about the idea. It’s lovely and painful at the same time.

I have not been a good steward to my grief. I’m not entirely sure what that would mean, considering the complicated relationship with my dad. I for sure have not been a good steward to my grief regarding the estrangement of The Tibbles. I do not decorate their absence with memories. I just shove all the memories away and try to not think about them lest my heart shatter.

So, that’s what been on my mind this week.

Jodi

The post Decorating the Abscence appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

You know those regular gym-goers who get up on their high horse and become smug assholes who complain and mock the people who clog the gym after the start of a new year?

They’re the worst. Guess what? I discovered that I am a very close cousin to those very same smug assholes. Only instead of being a jerk about new gym goers, I’m a jerk about writers who start Substacks (or re-start their much ignored Substacks) at the start of the year.

In case you don’t know Substacks are exactly like blogs but instead of visiting them for free on the Internet you have to (generally) pay for a subscription and then have it emailed to you.

Granny Interent is cranky, y’all.

Anyway, I did not come to bury nor to praise Substackers.

I came to tell you, briefly, about my three latest obsessions which is keeping me from filling you on all the other mundanity on my mind.

OBESSION 1
I started a new crochet project called the Catghan. You can see the first panel pictured above.

Why am I obsessed? Because it pits my two worst traits against each other. It’s a battle of impatience vs. trusting the process. I love this project because it works up really fast. I made the 10″x10″ panel over the weekend. However, it only works up really fast if I trust the process and don’t convince myself I fucked it all up. The only thing I dislike more than being patient is trusting the process, or well, trusting anything.

OBESSION 2
Pressure Cooker on Netflix. This is going to be an obsession that ends tonight. BFK told me about the show yesterday and I was up until 1 a.m. watching it until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Why am I obsessed? It’s like if Top Chef (my favorite show) had a baby with Big Brother (my family’s fave show). Right now, with two or three episodes to go, I hate Jeana with the fire of a thousands suns and it feels so good to have a reality/gameshow villain to root against.

OBESSION 3
George Michael: A Life. I’m about 350 pages into this 500+ page tome.

Why am I obsessed? I don’t know, exactly. Despite a fraught past with Wham!, this book is fascinating. Michael is a driven yet lazy, insecure yet infuriating asshole nice guy. I’d have finished the book by now if I didn’t have to take frequent breaks to watch the videos for “Faith” and “Freedom 90”.

For the record, I’ve rarely have faith of any kind (see: trusting the process) & I will never reconsider my foolish notion.

Love,
Jodi

The post There is No Jodi. There is Only Catghan. appeared first on I Will Dare.